— Downplayed talk that he’s a hero. Brett says he didn’t protect his friend Gracey Evans from harm by shielding her from the attacker. Instead, he says it was Gracey who saved his life.

While Gracey has told reporters she thinks Brett tried to push her out of the way, Brett says he had just been playfully knocking her around when he was stabbed from behind. He didn’t see the attacker coming, he says.

As he bled, Brett told reporters, it was his friend who put pressure on his wound. “Gracey saved my life,” he said.

— Talked about the suspect, who he hopes can “forgive himself.” Sixteen-year-old sophomore Alex Hribal is in custody and faces more than 20 charges (as an adult) stemming from the attack. Brett says he’s met Alex a couple times, but doesn’t really know him.

“I don’t know his reputation,” said Brett, “but after today he’s going to have a bad one.”

Still, he appears to have some empathy. “He has some issues he needs to work out,” Brett said of the attacker, who he believes “made a really bad decision.”

While it will be difficult for victims to forgive their attacker, Brett said it’s the accused who “most of all … needs to forgive himself.”

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